Astrid's Tale
by WidogastsWebofFire
Summary: Set immediately after C2E89, but also consisting of pre-stream material. After seeing her former love for the first time in over a decade, Astrid reminisces on her relationship with clever young wizard Bren Aldric Ermendrud and their journey from innocent teenagers to cold-blooded killers at the hands of their brilliant yet cruel teacher.


Prologue

_He is gone_, I tell myself.

As I close myself in my bedroom, shutting the door as soft as possible, I mutter it to myself like a mantra.

_He is gone_, I say, over and over, tying my tongue into bows. I rest my head on the closed door, squeezing my eyes tight shut. _He is gone. He is gone. He is gone._

It isn't an unfamiliar phrase. There were countless nights, back when he first was admitted into the Sanitarium, that I cried myself to sleep muttering that to myself, a lullaby to keep the guilt at bay.

He is gone. He is gone. He is—

He isn't, though, is he? I open my eyes and turn around to face my empty bedroom—emptier, it seems, than it was just a handful of minutes ago. Normally, I like the emptiness, the way my footsteps echo back to me, the thick silence that a life alone provides. The rest of the manor is for visitors—coworkers, sometimes students from the academy. The bedroom, though, is just for me. My own impenetrable fortress.

Not so impenetrable, I suppose. He hasn't even been in this room, but I feel him in here. I can smell him still, the scent of ink and ancient books and soap. The smoothness of his face is still on my fingertips. And his voice. That gentle, broken voice. Instead of my footsteps, it's his voice I hear.

_"__Too many scars."_

I close my eyes again, tighter this time. _He is gone, Astrid. He is gone._

No. No, he isn't.

I open my eyes, and despite myself, I wipe away a tear before it can roll down my cheek.

Bren is not gone. He is not locked in the Sanitorium. He is not an escapee, running across the countryside, homeless and cowering. He isn't dead. All of the ways I've pictured him throughout the years are now wiped from my mind, replaced with the tall, put-together, if not stiff man that was just in my parlor. When Halrin pulled me out of the study and said his name, I could hardly believe it. I still can hardly believe it.

Of course, the rumors have been spreading. Rumors of a ragtag band of adventurers who had been there at the time of the Kryn attack a couple days ago. The stories have spread, but I hadn't been able to confirm if any of them are true. Some say they killed the tentacled servant of a betrayer god in the Chantry of the Dawn. Some say they were Xhorhasian spies who managed to convince King Dwendal they were playing both sides. Out of all the whispers, though, the least believable one was that a former student of the Soltryce Academy—one of Trent Ickithon's chosen few—was among them. They used another name for him, at first. Widogast, I think. It wasn't long, though, until they put his real name to him. Bren Aldric Ermendrud.

I thought I could go on dismissing them as stories. Never could I have anticipated him showing up at my doorstep.

I straighten myself out, smoothing out my blouse, running a shaky hand through my hair. Does Ickithon know it's really him? Does Eodwulf? I haven't spoken to either of them since the stories started. Rushing over to my nightstand, I open the drawer and shuffle amongst the loose spell components I keep in there—scraps of wool, shards of amber, feathers of various sizes. After a moment of scrambling, I pull out a copper wire and trace a pattern in the air, ready to cast Sending. I should speak to Ickithon first. He would need to—

My fingers stop in mid-air. His face is frozen in my mind, the pained expression as he spoke of Ickithon. Compared to the last time I saw him, Bren looked sane, but some of what he said was nonsense. Something about Ickithon lying to him about what we did back when we were teenagers. He wasn't specific, but I could see it. He was like a vase that had once been shattered but had been repaired—back in its original shape, but the cracks were still visible.

Absently, my hand wanders up to the scar on my face. I suppose my cracks are still visible, too.

I bite my lip, throwing the wire back into the drawer and collapsing onto my bed. _You can't do this,_ I tell myself, wringing my hands in my lap. _You are not like Bren. You are stronger. You didn't let the pain get to you like he did. Look at where you are. You aren't toeing the line of treason like he is. You are a success where he was a failure. You don't need to protect him from anything. He spent all those years in the Sanitarium doing that himself._

I let a few somber moments pass before looking around my empty room. Sometimes I wonder, when I have these talks with myself, if it's really me doing the talking or if it's someone else.

It's a tense number of minutes as I wrestle with what to do. I start to go back to the component drawer. Maybe I'll hold off on telling Ickithon, but Eodwulf would want to know, right? He and I have kept our secrets from Ickithon before, and I'm sure we could do it again for our old friend. I stop myself, though, looking out my window at the night sky. He's probably asleep or having much more fun than I am right now. Best not spoil his good time, wherever he is. Besides, nothing will change between now and morning. Bren will still be in Rexxentrum. Alive. Sane.

My hand goes to my neck, the eerily smooth skin of the burn scar that sits there feeling warm underneath my fingers. Sometimes, when I think about it too much, it starts to burn again. Like a bit of the flame that made it was sealed inside.

My fingers remain clasped on my neck as I fall backward onto the bed. I let myself sink into the plush pillows and blankets, lush cushions that I could have only dreamed of sleeping in when I was a child.

I shut my eyes again.

And I remember.


End file.
